


Gathering the Party

by AlynnaStrong



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff, Games, Humor, Role-Playing Game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-16 00:05:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13624329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlynnaStrong/pseuds/AlynnaStrong
Summary: Sam Tarly starts a new tabletop roleplaying game for six of his buddies.  He's sure this will be his best run ever!





	Gathering the Party

“All right, settle down. We may as well get started. Take your seats.” They were his best friends and he loved them all dearly, but getting them organized was always like herding cats. Sam resolved to exercise firmer control of the run this time. No more letting the players walk all over him. He’d put his foot right down before letting them spiral after irrelevant details this time.

His players gradually took their places around the dinner table. Sam sat at the head, as was the only proper place for the gamemaster. To his right was Brienne, always helpful in reminding him of the rules, then Jaime her improbable new boyfriend, a relationship everyone had seen coming except the couple involved. The two jocks were so broad shouldered that a third seat couldn’t fit on that side of the table, therefore Bran’s wheelchair needed to be arranged at the foot. To Sam’s left was Jon, his closest mate since they met the first day of primary school, then first-time player Gendry, and his girlfriend Arya, always wanting to sit far from the gamemaster so she could ignore what she didn’t want to hear.

“Has everyone had time to design their characters?” Sam inquired.

“I was thinking p-” Brienne began.

“Paladin of the Father, yep, already wrote it down,” Sam said. He flashed her a glimpse of his note pad where he’d made predictions for most of them. Hers and Jon’s he might as well have written in ink. “God of oaths, justice, and retribution.”

“I can change it if I’m boring you,” she blushed.

“Nothing about you is boring,” Jaime said, correctly, but to a general gagging around the table. Sarcasm was Jaime’s natural element; he conveyed sweetness with all the elegance of a dancing bear.

“Nothing wrong with experts,” Sam reassured her, “Jaime, your usual fighter double specialized with sword?”

“Actually, this time I was thinking paladin as well.” He cast a moony look toward Brienne. “She’s said it can be a rewarding path.”

“Alright, sure. Two paladins are fine. Which god?”

“The Warrior. I like the direct combat spells rather than the party buffs.”

“Okay, that works. Bran?”

“Mage for me.”

No one, not even the GM, could suppress their groan. Bran had a tendency to overanalyze, and the mage class gave him plenty of opportunity to do so.

Arya pounded her fist on the table. “You’ve got to cast some damn combat spells this time. Do you promise?”

“Yeah, of course. When the time is ripe.” Not altogether a reassuring remark.

“How about you Arya?”

“I’m going for fighter,”

“Okay.”

“Mage,”

“Hang on.”

“Thief.”

“Arya! You can’t do everything.”

“Triple classing is allowed, and I like to keep my options open.”

“All right. But don’t get salty with me when you never go up levels.” Ah well, he’d known Arya would throw him a curve ball. So long as she wasn’t trying to secretly be a chaotic evil assassin, he’d call it a win.

“So Gendry, how did your first build go?”

“Arya helped me. I’m to be a cleric of the Smith. That sound right?”

“Sure. I mean, usually the cleric is of the Mother for the healing bonus, but the Smith gives some interesting bonuses too. Gear upgrades. Yeah, let’s give it a go. You can start with a +1 warhammer.”

“Sweet.”

“Jon?”

“Ranger.”

“Awesome. Okay, that’s shaping up pretty well. Anyone want to argue that they should start with non-standard gear or have some crazy backstory I have to work around right away?” Sam stared in Arya’s general direction, but for once she seemed prepared to let him get underway before disrupting things.

“Nothing? Going once, going twice. Great. Email me anything about your characters you don’t want to say out loud, figure out how you know each other, and next week we’ll get started. I can feel it, you guys, this is going to be the best run yet!”

 

**First Encounter**

“An endless plain of ice and snow stretches before you. As new recruits of the Night's Watch, you’ve been assigned to cut back the trees back from the Wall so that raiders can be spotted.”

“Wait. I thought you said endless plain. But there’s trees?” Gendry asked.

It was always the newbie that shot holes in the scenario. “Uh, I meant it’s a blizzard so you can’t see the trees you’re supposed to be cutting,” Sam said.

“Oh dear, that’s a -5 maneuver and observation penalty everyone,” reminded Brienne.

“I’ll climb one of the trees and look for enemies,” Jon said.

“You’re still journeying to where you’re supposed to go. You trudge through the blizzard for a while, and the storm starts to let up.” Sam had to get rid of his hastily created blizzard since first level characters couldn’t be expected to fight through penalties. “You look around and find that you seem to have gotten lost in the storm. Not too lost,” he said before Jon could cast Find the Path, “because you can still see the Wall, but you’re off course from where you were assigned.”

“What time of day is it now?” Bran asked.

“It’s about noon.”

“Let’s make a fire and have lunch, then we’ll double back,” Jaime suggested.

Sam saw Jon was getting ready to roll firestarting and waved him off. “It’s fine, there’s plenty of wood with all the trees.”

“But it’s wet from the snow,” Brienne said.

Jon rolled. A narrow success, thank goodness.

“You’re just getting warm, when suddenly there’s a noise to your right. Six skeletons burst forth from the ground to attack!”

“I duel wield my maces and leap into battle,” Jon said.

“I hide behind a tree and start sneaking up behind one,” Arya said.

“I pick up my hammer,” Gendry said. Arya gave him the thumbs up.

Sam looked toward his front line fighters. “Can the paladins stop necking please,” he said.

Brienne startled and blushed. Jaime’s head remained on her shoulder and his hands were gods knew where.

“I will draw my sword and head toward the monsters,” she said, obviously having no idea what they were fighting.

“Jaime? Jaime, snap to it or I’ll rule you’re acting in character,” Sam threatened.

“So? I’m allowed,” he said.

“No, paladins must remain chaste,” Brienne said. “Otherwise you might become fallen. You’d lose access to all your spells and take a huge penalty to attacks.”

Jaime’s broad grin took over his face, “Not paladins of the Warrior. We only have to be celibate – unmarried – not chaste.”

“Does it really say that?” Brienne asked, scandalized about missing a rule.

“There’s some who think it may be a misprint, but yeah it does,” Sam admitted.

“Paladins of the Mother can do whatever they want,” Jaime tempted her. Clearly he’d done his research over the past week.

“You can talk about changing gods later. Jaime, are you going to attack or not?”

“Yeah, fine. I draw my sword.”

“Okay everyone, roll your attacks.”

“Wait, I haven’t declared yet,” Bran said. “I’ll cast Detect Life.”

“Why…the hells…would you cast Detect Life at a bunch of undead?” Arya growled. If it’d been anyone other than her little brother, they’d be explaining themselves from the floor.

“Is it more important for me to do like four points of damage from Magic Missile, or to know whether there’s a necromancer about?” Bran asked.

Sam wanted to hit him too, but for a different reason. “You detect all of you, plus a snow leopard lurking in the trees above.”

“Aha!” Bran crowed.

“So for attacks, Brienne, you do one point of damage to yours.”

“One? I have max strength.”

“Yeah, but you’re using a sword on a skeleton. Blunt weapons work best. Jaime, same thing. Pay attention next time. Jon and Gendry you each take yours out.”

“Good job, babe,” Arya said to Gendry. “Now I’d like to sneak up behind one and backstab it with the hilt of my dagger.”

“They sense life, so roll really well,” Sam said.

Arya rolled a critical success, ambushing and killing the skeleton.

“Let’s see about their attacks. Brienne, you take two points. Bran, two points. Ooh, critical hit on Jaime; six points and your sword breaks.”

“It’s my only weapon!”

“Jaime, you’re not a sword specialist anymore. You’re allowed one of each of your starting weapons,” Brienne said.

“What else do you have?”

“Morningstar, crossbow, and dagger.”

“I’ll draw my morningstar, then.”

“Me too; I’ll drop my sword,” Brienne said, still humbled about making a mistake.

“And the snow leopard pounces on…” Sam randomly rolled for a victim, “Oh, Jon. Sorry Jon. Take eight points of damage and you’re now prone. Next round.”

“I cast Blessings,” said Brienne, “+1 to our attacks, -1 to theirs.”

“Aren't you going to attack?” asked Jaime.

“No, I cast Blessings.”

“Fine, I attack her skeleton then.”

“Jaime, yours is still up,” she scowled.

“You're keeping us blessed; I attack hers. With the morningstar.”

“You do four points. Both skeletons are still up and are now locked in on you.”

“Four points? Morningstars suck,” Jaime complained.

“Can I cast Charm Beast?” Jon asked.

“No, you can't cast while prone. And are you even conscious?” Sam said.

“Yeah, I've got two hit points left.”

“Can we attack animals?” Gendry asked.

“Of course! Hit it with your hammer!” Arya encouraged him.

“Nine points.”

“Damn, you're deadly with that thing. I'll use a club to ambush the skeleton attacking Bran.”

“Where did you get a club?” Sam asked.

“The skeleton I killed before's femur.”

“I guess that works. It goes down. Bran?”

“Well, I'm wondering-”

“Just a random comment: you're the last to go, and Jon's going to get attacked at the end of turn and probably die if someone doesn't take out the leopard that has two hit points left.” Sam said. The rest of the table exerted all the psychic peer pressure they could.

“I cast Magic Missile at the leopard,” Bran said, resigned. He'd been working on stringing a couple of cantrips together for an interesting distraction, but fine.

“It dies. Jaime...miss and miss from the skeletons. Lucky bastard. Okay, next round I think the six of you can finish off the two wounded skeletons before they get their attacks. As you head deeper into the forest-”

“No wait, first I want to skin the leopard. That's good fur and meat,” said Jon.

“Quite an expensive pelt as I recall,” said Brienne. “I'll look for unholy symbols carved anywhere.”

“Babe, can you crush some of these skeleton bones with your hammer? Bran and I can use them as spell components.”

“I'll Lay Hands on Jon,” Jaime said.

“Excuse me!”

“You're nearly unconscious.”

“Oh, right, forgot you were a paladin this time. Your girlfriend usually does it.” Jon smirked.

Jaime narrowed his eyes, unsure if Jon was mocking him until he cracked up.

“Aren't I supposed to be the healer?” Gendry asked.

“Save your healing for emergencies. See, Sam was trying to rush us into the next combat before we healed up. Never listen to the GM,” Arya advised.

As everyone around the table nodded, Sam saw he'd lost control of the run once again. At least everyone was having fun. And they were going to be so surprised once he managed to corral them into the cave. Oh crap, they're between a frozen forest and the Wall, with no hills in sight. He had to get better at writing flavor text.

 


End file.
